South Korea Has Earned a Victory Lap on Rates

The Federal Reserve doesn’t exactly rule the world, but there are times when it comes close. Only a few brave — or supremely confident — souls get too far in front. When they do, their actions tend to be considered outliers or, worse, ignored. That’s unfair. As South Korea prepares to lower borrowing costs for the first time in four years, we should salute the nation’s role in a tumultuous period of global policy making.

Interest-rate cuts are happening, or tipped to start soon, in a new country almost daily. When historians chronicle this cycle, they will likely point to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s address at Jackson Hole in August or the Federal Open Market Committee’s big reduction three weeks later. The European Central Bank’s early, though hesitant, easing in June is worthy of an honorable mention. Yet we might still be looking in the wrong place.